Language Planning and Policy

Md. Jahurul Islam

Definition:
According to Weinstein (1980: 56) “Language planning is a government
authorized, longterm, sustained, and conscious effort to alter a language’s
function in a society for the purpose of solving communication problems.”
Wardhaugh (1998) comments, ‘Language planning is an attempt to interfere
deliberately with a language or one of its varieties.’ Deutsch (1968) documented
the tremendous increase within Europe during the last thousand years in what
he calls ‘fully-fledged national languages.’ They were six in 950 AD: Latin, Greek,
Hebrew, Arabic, Anglo-Saxon, and Church Slavonic. They were thirty in the
nineteenth century and increased to more than fifty-three after 1937 (Deutsch
1968).
Each ‘new’ country wanted individual language and the government of the
countries (Finnish, Welsh, Norwegian, Romanian, etc.) have had to plan to
develop or promote certain languages and sometimes to hinder or demote
others.

Need of LPP (Colonialism & Independence)

- Resolve the problem of communication (lingua communis)
- Developing nationalism

Stages of LPP
1. Status planning changes the functions of a language or a variety of a
language and the rights of those who use it Wardhaugh (1998). When the
language of a minority is denied in educating their children, the language
has no status. On the other hand, when a new language is declared to be
used officially along with the previous ones, it has gained the status.
2. Corpus planning is concerned with developing a variety of a language or
a language, usually to standardize it, and making it equipped with the
scope of meeting every possible language functions. It involves:
- Developing orthography,
- New sources of vocabulary,
- Creating dictionaries,
- Producing literatures,
- Deliberate cultivation of new uses, etc.
It has been specifically important in countries like Indonesia, Israel, India,
Pakistan, etc.
3. Acquisition/Education planning :
It is the planning of how the language will be taught to the children of new
generation
4. Usage planning :
The targeted domains of language use
5. Esteem planning : American vs. English/ Chalit vs. Shadhu

Who are involved in LPP efforts ?

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Politicians, linguists, educators, writers, national academics.

According to (Cobarrubias 1983), there are four typical ideologies that may
motivate actual decision making in language planning in a particular society:
- Linguistic assimilation,
- Linguistic pluralism,
- Vernacularization,
- Internationalism.

Linguistic assimilation: It is the belief that everyone, regardless of origin,

should learn the dominant language of the society. France applied it to various
peoples within its borders. The USA used in Guam and the Philippines. The
Hellenization of Macedonia and the Russification of the former USSR are also a
form of linguistic assimilation.
Linguistic pluralism: It is the recognition of more than one language:
territorially based, or individually based or a combination of the two. It might be
complete or partial, that is, all or only some aspects of life can be conducted in
more than one language in a society. Examples include- Belgium, Canada,
Singapore, South Africa and Switzerland.
Vernacularization: It is the restoration or elaboration of an indigenous
language and its adoption as an official language. Examples include- Bahasa
Indonesia in Indonesia; Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea; Hebrew in Israel;
Tagalog/Pilipino in Philippines; and Quechua in Peru.
Internationalism: It is the adoption of a non-indigenous language of wider
communication either as an official language or for such purposes as education
or trade. For example, English in Singapore, India, the Philippines and Papua New
Guinea.

A language may have official status even on a regional basis. Examples include
Igbo, Yoruba and Huasa in Nigeria; German in Belgium; and Marathi in
Maharashtra in India.
A language might be ‘promoted’, which lacks official status, but used by various
authorities for specific purposes. There are many languages in Canada and in
various parts of the USA are the examples of this.
A tolerated language is the language which is not ‘promoted’, nor even
proscribed or restricted. For example: Amerindian languages in North America.
A discouraged/proscribed language is the one against which there are
official sanctions or restrictions. Such as: Basque in the early years of Franco’s
regime in Spain; and Macedonian in Greece.
Minority languages might be tolerated or proscribed.
Two important issues:
- Language rights of the immigrants: Both the UNESCO and the
UN have declared that the ethnic groups have the right to
maintain their languages.
- The problem of authentic data to be used for language planning
decision. Some problems include:
o Often census data are not reliable
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 o Census in India is am example. Responses are often
politically motivated
o Information vary from time to time- during WW-II, people
suppressed their German ethnicity in North America.
Again, in the 1960s and 1970s, ability of speaking Spanish
was a matter of pride in North America. Recently,
Canadians claim to be bilinguals.

Case studies: French and Turkish

French: The country has a single national language and does almost nothing for
any other languages. People have little interests in studies of finding out how
many people speak Provencal or Breton, nor even are they interested in doing
anything for or against Basque. The immigrant groups like Algerians or
Vietnamese want to preserve their language, they must try to do it with their
own resources as the state never takes interests since French widely to be the
proper language of instruction in schools (with only exception of German in
Alsace. English in England and Japanese in Japan are also single national
languages.

Turkish: Turkey provides a good example of very deliberate language planning

designed to achieve certain national objectives within a very short time. In 1928,
Kemal Ataturk deliberately adopted the Roman script for his new modern
Turkish. This eventually disjointed the Turks from the Islamic past and unified to
a concept of modern Turkey. As only 10% of the total population was literate, he
faced almost no objection. He had to create vocabulary now. Then in 1930s, he
came up with the ‘Sun Language Theory’ which said that Turkish was the mother
tongue of the world, and when Turkish borrowed from others, it is only taking
back own things. At present, this language is full of borrowings, particularly from
English, French and other European languages. Evidently, corpus planning
worked very well in modern Turkey.

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